A Few Thoughts On Post-Election Recuperation………

A friend just sent me a link to a truly sad and disturbing 24 minute breakdown in response to the election results.  I skimmed through the comment section prior to viewing it, like I usually do, just to see if there were any key things I should listen for, then hit start.  It took the best part of the morning to get through it.

Wow.

When I started posting my own thoughts online I had the quite natural fear that if I opened myself up to strangers, I would bring ridicule on myself.  I was new at blogging.  I was a recovering Stepford Republican turned Liberal.  Of course, being me, I decided p-fooey on it, and jumped in with both feet.  What I didn’t expect was to find myself enjoying it so much.  Feedback, whether good, bad, or indifferent, is endlessly interesting to me.  I have met some fascinating people, and gained some perspective I lacked after reading their blogs.  I am also endlessly awed by the quantity of talented, interesting, & humorous people blogging and posting nowadays.  Y’all so very often say exactly what I was thinking, but you just say it so darn much better.

That being said, I wanted to say three things to the world out there.

For my small circle of readers and commenters, thank you.  Y’all keep me coming back.  I post what I post because I believe in it, and I stand behind it, but having even one person who actually reads what I write elevates me from crazy cat lady pushing a wire cart and muttering to very, very amateur writer.  It’s a small distinction, but an important one to me.  As of this morning, I have yet to become an object of ridicule or major harassment, and thank you all for that, as well.  I have been fortunate in my freedom from trolls or cyber ugliness to any great extent.

For the unfortunate Nebraska blogger who has inadvertently become an object of lampooning and skewering humor…..I am sorry, ma’am.  You obviously believed very much in what you were doing, and you clearly put a lot of work and heart into it.  It goes without saying that I completely disagree with most of what you were working for, but respect is still possible even when disagreement exists.  I think you are wrong, but I also think those lambasting you aren’t much better.

For everyone, everywhere…….  I understand that many are still smarting from a vicious election cycle.  Even some outside the US were pulled in and became invested in the shenanigans and mud slinging.  The Conservatives have a great deal of work ahead of them if they want to tame and reclaim their party to make it a viable contender.  We need them to step up and do just that, because in its current state, the Republican party is a mess.  There was a good reason our founders wove checks and balances into our government.  It ain’t perfect, but it keeps the crazies from completely taking over.

Thank goodness for that, because the last few years we came perilously close.  We need more than one cohesive and functional party to represent us.  We need the discord, the arguments, the bargaining, and the pressure from others to compromise.  I understand the tendency of  some to poke fun at the losing end.  Call it schadenfreude, gloating, or the good old standard neener-neener, let’s get it out of our system quickly and extend a hand.  The sooner we stop trading insults, taunting, and anger, the sooner we can start working together with the rational folks in every party to cleanse our government of the remaining whack-a-doodles and obstructionists.